Adlet returned to the forest with his bow in hand and a strange impatience in his chest.
It wasn't like his usual mornings.
Normally, the woods were a place to breathe—quiet paths, familiar turns, the comfort of knowing exactly where each root tried to trip him. Today, every step carried weight. Every sound felt like it could be proof.
He moved slowly, not because he lacked confidence, but because he couldn't afford to waste it on nothing.
A branch creaked somewhere above.
He stopped.
Listened.
The sound faded into the ordinary life of the forest.
He forced himself forward again.
"They just wanted to laugh," he muttered, not to convince himself—but to keep anger from turning into hope.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope made you see monsters in shadows.
And yet—
A stubborn part of him kept whispering the same thought.
What if it's real?
What if this is the day the world finally gives him something to fight?
He reached the place where he usually stashed his handmade tools—bow, line, rod—hidden the way he hid everything important: quietly, carefully, like the village didn't deserve to know what he wanted.
He took them out without smiling.
His fingers were steady, but his eyes kept lifting, scanning the undergrowth.
He followed signs that could have meant anything.
A broken branch.
Marks on bark that might have been claws.
Or might have been nothing but time and animals and wind.
Every time his imagination leaned forward, reality pulled back.
Minutes stretched into hours.
The woods offered only ordinary movement—rabbits slipping away, birds flaring into the air when he got too close.
No massive silhouette.
No heavy breathing behind the trees.
No roar.
At last, Adlet stopped.
A slow breath left him, longer than it should have been.
He stared at the quiet path ahead.
"…So that's it."
Heat rose behind his neck—shame more than anger.
He had walked straight into the role they wanted him to play: the weird boy chasing stories. The boy who trained too much and talked too little and took everything too seriously.
His grip loosened on the bow.
Enough.
If the monster wasn't real, then fine.
He would not let a lie decide how he moved.
He straightened, shoulders settling.
One day, reality would answer them without his help.
And whether it happened today or years from now—he would still be walking toward it.
He kept moving until the afternoon began to thin, the forest light shifting into softer tones under the constant glow of the Stars above. The stone ceiling didn't change the way a sky would, but even here you could feel the day turning—less busy, more still.
Adlet didn't lower his guard completely.
Not because he believed the rumor again.
Because caution was part of him now.
Eventually, the tension in his shoulders loosened enough for him to admit what he actually wanted.
Not a fight.
Not proof.
Peace.
Fishing wasn't heroic.
It wasn't training.
It was simply… quiet.
And after the morning he'd had, quiet felt like something he'd earned.
He turned toward the western clearing—his clearing.
The river ran there, steady and familiar, threading between trees and stone as it traced the base of the world's boundary wall. Water reflected the pale light of the Stars in broken streaks, like scattered sparks drifting on the surface.
Just seeing it made something in his chest unclench.
He sat near the bank, took out his line, and worked by habit—hands moving with the kind of care you didn't have to think about anymore.
He cast.
The line cut the air and landed with a soft ripple.
He waited.
The forest breathed around him: leaves shifting, distant calls, the steady murmur of the current.
Minutes passed.
Then—
The rod bent violently.
Adlet's body snapped awake.
Water surged, churning hard enough to spray his face.
He dug his feet into the ground and pulled back, muscles tightening as the unseen creature fought with a strength that didn't fit the river.
For a heartbeat, he thought the line would snap.
It didn't.
Adlet didn't let it.
He braced, pulled, adjusted, fought the pull with raw stubbornness until the struggle finally broke upward.
The river erupted.
A long, slender fish burst from the surface in a spray of shimmering water—white scales streaked with gold, and behind it, seven ribbon-like tails fluttered like living threads of light.
Adlet froze.
Not because it was beautiful—
but because it shouldn't have been possible.
The fish hung in the air for a fraction of a second.
Then it dissolved.
Not swimming away.
Not slipping back into the river.
It simply… broke apart into pale mist and vanished right in front of him.
Adlet staggered back.
His hands stayed lifted as if still holding the line, even though the weight was gone.
His throat tightened.
He stared at the empty air, then at the river, as if the water might explain itself.
Nothing moved.
Nothing answered.
By the time he started walking home, the forest felt the same as it always had.
Which made him feel worse.
Because the world had just done something impossible—then tried to pretend it hadn't.
Dinner passed like any other.
His parents spoke. Ate. Asked simple questions. Laughed at something he didn't hear properly.
If he tried to explain what happened, it would become a joke—one more story to fold into his "strange Adlet" reputation.
So he swallowed it.
Chewed bland food.
Nodded in the right places.
And carried the image of those seven ribbons behind his eyes until sleep took him.
Later, Adlet opened his eyes.
He wasn't in his bed.
He wasn't anywhere.
Darkness surrounded him—vast, silent, weightless. He had no limbs. No breath. Only awareness suspended in something that didn't feel like air or water, yet carried him anyway.
A soft white glow appeared ahead.
It wove itself into shape slowly, as if the darkness resisted being given form.
Seven ribbons drifted first.
Then the slender silhouette of the fish.
It hovered without effort, tails flowing as if moved by currents Adlet couldn't feel.
"Hello," a voice said.
It didn't come from the fish's mouth.
It came from everywhere at once, calm and emotionless, like a fact spoken aloud.
Adlet turned his head instinctively—then realized he didn't have one.
Still, he focused on the fish.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The ribbons swayed.
"Who am I?" the voice replied. "I am here."
"…You're a fish."
"If that is the word you use."
Adlet tried to look around, but the darkness offered nothing.
"Why are we here?"
"You defeated me," the voice said simply. "So I am here. And you… are within yourself."
Adlet blinked, even though blinking didn't make sense here.
"If this is my mind," he said carefully, "why is it so dark?"
A pause.
Then: "Your spirit is weak."
The words were said without cruelty.
That almost made them worse.
Adlet's jaw tightened. "My spirit might be weak. But my will isn't."
"And what do you seek with that will?"
"To become strong enough to be a Protector."
"I do not know what a Protector is," the fish admitted. "But our fate is now connected. Whether this makes you stronger… depends on you."
Adlet's breath caught.
"Can you share your strength with me?"
"Yes," the fish replied.
The simplicity of the answer made Adlet's heart pound harder than any fight ever had.
"So… does that mean I'm a Protector now?"
"I do not know what a Protector is," the fish repeated. "But you are my master. You defeated me."
Adlet flinched at the word.
"Don't call me that," he said quickly. "We're not like that."
The fish's ribbons drifted, indifferent to the concept.
"And will I be stronger?" Adlet pressed. "Right now?"
"If you mean physically," the fish said, "I doubt it. You already overcame me."
"Then how will you help me?"
Another pause.
"I cannot explain all that I am," it said. "Could you truly understand, if you were in my place?"
Adlet swallowed his frustration.
"…No."
"I avoided conflict," the fish continued, almost neutrally.
Adlet's mouth twitched—one brief flicker of humor. "Until you attacked my hook."
"Precisely," the fish answered. "That was your achievement."
The darkness began to press in again, subtly.
The fish's glow dimmed.
"Our conversation ends," the voice said. "You are too weak to remain here for long."
Adlet felt it—the fading, like being pulled backward through water.
He fought it instinctively. "Wait—"
He had too many questions, but only one mattered more than the rest.
"What's your name?"
A pause.
"You called me Fish. That will do."
Adlet's eyes narrowed.
"No," he said, and the word came out firmer than he expected. "Fish isn't a name."
He didn't think.
He decided.
A simple sound formed in his mind—short, strange, fitting.
"Pami," he said.
The ribbons stirred, and for a moment the glow warmed—not brighter, just… softer.
"As you wish," the voice replied.
Adlet shook his head. "And don't call me master."
Another pause.
"…Adlet," the voice said.
The darkness folded.
His consciousness gently drifting back, returning to the quiet world of his body.
Outside, the Stars remained steady and eternal, watching over a boy who had just taken his first step toward a far greater destiny.